With him was another man, also in a black peasant's smock and the dark gray trousers that were almost a uniform in that province, wearing rope-soled shoes and with a carbine slung over his back.
This man was bareheaded.
The two of them came scrambling down the rock like goats.
They came up to him and Robert Jordan got to his feet.
"_Salud, Camarada_," he said to the man with the carbine and smiled.
"_Salud_," the other said, grudgingly.
Robert Jordan looked at the man's heavy, beard-stubbled face.
It was almost round and his head was round and set close on his shoulders.
His eyes were small and set too wide apart and his ears were small and set close to his head.
He was a heavy man about five feet ten inches tall and his hands and feet were large.
His nose had been broken and his mouth was cut at one corner and the line of the scar across the upper lip and lower jaw showed through the growth of beard over his face.
The old man nodded his head at this man and smiled.
"He is the boss here," he grinned, then flexed his arms as though to make the muscles stand out and looked at the man with the carbine in a half-mocking admiration.
"A very strong man."
"I can see it," Robert Jordan said and smiled again.
He did not like the look of this man and inside himself he was not smiling at all.
"What have you to justify your identity?" asked the man with the carbine.
Robert Jordan unpinned a safety pin that ran through his pocket flap and took a folded paper out of the left breast pocket of his flannel shirt and handed it to the man, who opened it, looked at it doubtfully and turned it in his hands.
So he cannot read, Robert Jordan noted.
"Look at the seal," he said.
The old man pointed to the seal and the man with the carbine studied it, turning it in his fingers.
"What seal is that?"
"Have you never seen it?"
"No."
"There are two," said Robert Jordan.
"One is S. I. M., the service of the military intelligence.
The other is the General Staff."
"Yes, I have seen that seal before.
But here no one commands but me," the other said sullenly.
"What have you in the packs?"
"Dynamite," the old man said proudly.
"Last night we crossed the lines in the dark and all day we have carried this dynamite over the mountain."
"I can use dynamite," said the man with the carbine.
He handed back the paper to Robert Jordan and looked him over.
"Yes.
I have use for dynamite.
How much have you brought me?"
"I have brought you no dynamite," Robert Jordan said to him evenly.
"The dynamite is for another purpose.
What is your name?"
"What is that to you?"
"He is Pablo," said the old man.
The man with the carbine looked at them both sullenly.
"Good.
I have heard much good of you," said Robert Jordan.
"What have you heard of me?" asked Pablo.
"I have heard that you are an excellent guerilla leader, that you are loyal to the republic and prove your loyalty through your acts, and that you are a man both serious and valiant.
I bring you greetings from the General Staff."
"Where did you hear all this?" asked Pablo.
Robert Jordan registered that he was not taking any of the flattery.